Free The Dog Who Could Fly by Damien Lewis Page A

cart, leading the men toward a shadowed ravine. It turned out to conceal a deep railway cutting. Hidden within its depths were thirty railcars, with three engines coupled to the front and working up a head of steam in preparation for imminent departure.
    The entire train was full to bursting. Still, a mob of desperate servicemen and their families besieged it, demanding to be allowed onto carriages that could hold no more. As the nine airmen surveyed the scene, it looked pretty hopeless. On a first-come-first-served basis they were at the very back of the line, and there was no way that they would push women and children aside so as to claim their own place on this train ride to safety.
    It was then that Ant took the initiative. Steering a path through the crowd, he headed toward the rear of the train, with Robert following. The final few cars were cattle cars, which the airmen presumed had to be crammed full of livestock. Unlike the passenger cars, there were few if any people milling around, and the rear of the train was a place of relative calm.
    Ant reached the very last of the cattle cars, plunked down his rear, and glanced back at his master, his eyes aglow. There’s a gorgeous smell in here. Irresistible, actually! Open up and let’s see what it is!
    When Robert tried to slide the door aside it failed to move. He banged on it a few times, but with little hope that the animals he presumed were inside would respond. Then, miracle of miracles, the door slid open a crack. A well-dressed woman poked out her nose, peering guardedly at Robert. An instant later her face lit up when shesaw the puppy sitting obediently at his side. She slid the door open wider and beckoned Robert and his dog to enter . . . perhaps not gambling on the eight fellow airmen who accompanied them!
    Robert and Ant took a place in one corner of the carriage. It was devoid of livestock, and apart from the woman and her two teenage daughters, plus a large quantity of luggage, it was completely deserted. Hardly daring to believe their luck, the nine airmen piled in their own suitcases and slid shut the door.
    With the car door firmly closed and bolted, the girls revealed the source of the smell that had drawn Ant to them. They had been feasting on a bar of chocolate. Noting how the puppy eyed it hungrily, the older girl broke off a piece and offered it to him. The ravenous dog needed no coaxing with fingers dripping in melted chocolate this time; instead, he took the piece gently from her hand and wolfed it down.
    “Mais il est mignon!” she exclaimed, breaking off another square of chocolate— but he is so cute!
    With Ant having broken the ice, the woman explained that her husband was a publisher in Brussels, but that he had been called up by the Belgian Army. She had heard nothing of him for two months, and so was fleeing the family home for the south of France, where she hoped to find sanctuary. Her daughters were delighted to be able to make a fuss over Ant, and the woman seemed happy enough at the extra company.
    The elder of the two girls let the tired dog rest his head in her lap. She soothed him to sleep with a soft Belgian lullaby, one that partially drowned out the shouts of people farther up the track fighting for seats that did not exist. Just before dawn the overloaded train finally lurched into motion, using the only undamaged track going in the direction of intended travel—south to safety—and leaving hundreds of desperate would-be passengers behind.
    But so great was the weight of those who had squeezed aboardthat at the first gradient the long line of cars broke apart in the middle. Those cars nearest the break lurched backward into the cattle cars at the rear, Ant being buried under a heap of falling suitcases.
    His yelping was pitiful. Hey! Hey! I’m here! Get me out of here!
    As the airmen pulled the suitcases off him Robert dragged the puppy clear. The engineless railcars gathered speed, careering backward down the incline,